There was a note of pride beneath the General’s response to her suggestion; in the promise that their son would one day eclipse him. For Kvothe, of course, nothing could fall shorter of the truth— the golden stallion had become her entire world, and no force that existed could cast a shadow over his light. Not even her children, as fiercely as she’d loved each one of them. But she felt her chest swell all the same; felt Tyr’s pride as if it were her own. Just as she’d felt his anguish only moments before… and just as she felt his wonder moments later, after he’d pulled away to search for the truth behind her unexpected offer.

Glancing up as the curtain of her hair was lifted and the stage of her emotions exposed to Tyr’s eyes, the red woman was no less surprised by what she saw. There was a vulnerability in the bachelor’s expression that she’d only ever glimpsed in their moments of shared grief. Only this time, the stallion was baring himself to her by choice; opening the same door she’d unbarred only seconds before. And leaning into the gentle brush of his lips with a contented hum, Kvothe’s only regret was that she hadn’t yielded to this— this sense of belonging sooner. That she’d wasted so much time fighting what Tyr was to her, and what he’d come to mean.

I was afraid. Amidst the affection and joy that crowded her thoughts, the dunalino’s hushed confession was unexpected. Tipping her head back, the slender chestnut sought to understand where the words had come from. But in the seconds between that murmur and the next, she couldn’t find anything to account for the General’s fear. Not Frey, who even in his defiance didn’t possess the strength to stand against him. And if he didn’t fear his son, then it couldn’t be her that Tyr feared, either. She wasn’t capable of anything the roan boy couldn’t already do better; she couldn’t hurt him the way that Frey might.

But— as the truths he spoke were revealed— she could hurt him in another. She could leave him.

When that stallion challenged for you, when he lost and you ran away, I thought you were running away from me. “No, Tyr.” Kvothe breathed, reassuring him in the same soft voice with which she’d once soothed Aslan’s fears. “No— I could never.” And it didn’t matter whether those words had been true then— because they were true now. After this, there was no way that she could run from him in the figurative way that she’d been doing for years. For the first time since she’d come to the Lagoon, the spotted stallion was seeing her— all of her. Not just the darkness of her doubts and her grief, but also the light of her love and her joy.

Are you sure you want another child? “Only if you do, Tyr. If you’ll have me, then I am yours. And I— I want the world to know it, too.” The Friesian mare had never been certain of anything save Ironclad, for all that that certainty had won her. But she was certain of this. She was finally done running, and wanted to show Tyr everything within herself that she’d hidden. She wanted him to know how much he mattered; she wanted to give herself to him. And a small, selfish part of her wanted to hold a part of him too— to claim him in a way that would make him hers. “We don’t have to. But if we do, then I want to do it right this time. I want to do this with you, and I want you to know that I want it. That I’ve— that I’ve wanted it for a very long time.”

On this final, tender note, her words faded into silence.

And— curling into the warm wall of his flesh— Kvothe surrendered.